Ten Worshippers Dead After Church Roof Collapse during Mass in Mexico

At least 10 people have been killed after a church roof collapsed in Northern Mexico

Forty-nine people were taken to hospital after the collapse at Santa Cruz Church in the Coastal City of Ciudad Madero in Tamaulipas State.

At least two children are reported to be among those killed.

Around 100 people were attending mass at the time, police said. Some reports suggested a baptism ceremony was being held there.

Dozens of people were left trapped inside the church following the incident. Images on social media showed the church building in ruins as people crowded around the rubble, desperately searching for those who were missing.

The governor of Tamaulipas, Américo Villarreal, later said that all the missing had been accounted for.

People were said to be arriving with shovels and pickaxes to try to move the debris.

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Video distributed by the state civil defense office showed the outer edges of the roof propped up by short wooden blocks.

It also showed initial efforts to lift off parts of the collapsed roof closer to the ground, in the center of the church, with a crane. But the office said the efforts to lift roof sections were abandoned because of the danger that a chunk of the now-crumbling slab might fall back and endanger any survivors.

The video described how officials had reverted to manual rescue efforts, apparently sending rescuers under the slab with wood props or hydraulic jacks to reach those trapped underneath. Specially trained dogs also were sent into the rubble to detect survivors.

The civil defense office said the dogs did not initially appear to detect signs of survivors, so an older method was implemented that had been used in past earthquakes: sending rescue teams into the rubble to shout and listen for signs of any response.

Building collapses are common in Mexico during earthquakes, but the National Seismological Service did not report any seismic activity strong enough to cause such damage at the time of the collapse. Nor was there any immediate indication of an explosion.

Ciudad Madero is about 310 miles (500 kilometers) south of Brownsville, Texas. Tamaulipas is known for drug cartel violence, but Ciudad Madero is in the southern part of the state near neighboring Veracruz state and has been less touched by the violence.